MURDER IS SKIN DEEP by M.G. Cole (read dune .txt) 📕

Garrick moved closer to the photo of Fraser and Rebecca, grinning happily at the camera. “Other than him, she is our only suspect without an alibi.”

“We haven’t had a chance to checkout her Airbnb.”

“I’m sure she will pluck a witness from somewhere who’ll verify that she was there all night.”

He sighed. Where had Rebecca Ellis been heading? It wasn’t back to her accommodation, and she had left as if to keep an appointment…

“I want a sweep around Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. Look for Rebecca Ellis’s car. Put a call out. She’s not to be stopped, keep it all quiet. I just want to know where she is. Also, look at car parks. Any flags on ANPR.” She was driving far too carefully to be ensnared by any traffic cameras, but with bus lanes and CCTV you just never knew your luck.

“What about protection for Fraser?”

“We can’t have an armed bodyguard following him everywhere. Besides, something just doesn’t ring true. Let’s assume our lookalike-theory led to our first victim. Oscar Benjamin was using some hired thugs to find out Hoy’s identity. Fine. But would he repeat the same mistake at the gallery?”

“We have Rebecca Ellis there. Arguing.”

“Which makes more sense if they’re working together to get to Hoy…”

“Or blackmailing Fraser.”

“Mmmm….”

“But why go back and kill him? And if it was somebody else… what’s the motive?”

“Perhaps he agreed to help? Maybe he was offered a bigger commission if they got Fraser out of the way.”

“Except he claimed he didn’t know Hoy’s identity. Fraser confirmed that.”

“Which brings it all back to Derek Fraser. They finally realise he is the sole gatekeeper. If they kill him, it would be logical to assume Hoy would turn himself over to the police instead of submitting to blackmail. Which means Fraser’s on safe ground at the moment. The only option I can think of is that they would need to persuade Hoy that Fraser is a terrible agent. Poison his reputation.”

“Convince him that Fraser is taking a larger cut than he should, that sort of thing?”

Garrick nodded.

“That’s as good a theory as any. But if Fraser winds up dead in his hotel, after requesting protection, then the optics will not look very good.”

“Nothing about this case is looking very good. Rebecca Ellis. That’s who we need to focus on.” Her arrogance irked him. She took delight in messing people around. Again, he felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy towards Fraser.

He was sure she knew where Oscar Benjamin was. They just needed to find him before the body count went any higher.

17

Yet again, PC Fanta Liu's intervention saved Garrick from a costly mistake. He had been in the middle of texting Wendy to cancel their ramble across the Kent Downs when Fanta had passed by and glanced at his phone. An action that annoyed Garrick as he was all too aware of her acute powers of observation.

“Is that your friend I met last night?” she asked as innocently as possible, something she wasn’t particularly good at. Before Garrick could snap that she should mind her own business, Fanta quickly continued. “Only it’s bad form these days to let anybody down with a text message. I mean, it’s one step away from ghosting. Just saying…”

She quickly walked away, fearing his grumpy wrath. She was right, of course. Garrick should have known that. It was the sort of advice his sister would’ve given him. Blindingly obvious advice. He called Wendy on his way home and was relieved to hear her sound sympathetic. He promised to make it up to her as soon as possible, and they had chitchatted aimlessly all the way back to his house.

On reflection, it was a welcome change. Any work-related interventions had always been met with a frosty reaction in previous relationships. He appreciated Wendy’s relaxed attitude and began thinking about how he could make it up to her. Maybe another musical if she liked them so much? Perhaps that was a step too far…

His empty house seemed to compound his loneliness tonight. Perhaps because the day had been so hectic, or maybe there was some deeper disappointment that he would not see Wendy tomorrow.

A quick meal of microwaved beans on toast raised previously unasked questions about his poor diet. He had clearly sunk into bachelorhood so firmly than he realised. He picked up his half-cleaned ammonite from the dining table and inspected it. There was a still good few hours’ worth of cleaning still to be done, as well as the tidying of a large chunk of matrix that he had left the fossil sitting on. Still, to his eyes, he had carved a beauty from the rock. Some of his enthusiastic air scribing had accidentally pitted the ancient shell and, in his clumsiness, he had completely removed one of the spiralling ridges, but he prided himself that it was still recognisable. Some of the detail that he had uncovered beneath the rock was quite breathtaking. The echoes of his migraine persisted, so any further work on it would have to wait.

He put the television on and sat on the sofa, with his feet on the coffee table. He hazarded that opening himself up to a little pop culture may give him more to talk about with Wendy. There was a few days’ worth of post to go through, mostly junk that had travelled across the country, been hand-delivered to his house, just so he could then carry it those last few yards to the kitchen bin and its final fate in a recycling centre. A thin bank statement and an increased Council Tax bill did nothing to lift his mood. The final item was a white envelope.

Stamped from America.

Garrick didn’t know anybody stateside, and he couldn’t believe that Flora PD would mail him anything. Baffled, he ripped the top of the letter open with his finger. It was empty. He inserted his forefinger and thumb to widen the envelope in case he had missed something.

With shaking